> [This seems a little police state-ish. John Mage, are you still on
> her case?
a consultant, within the privilege.
> I don't understand how you can make charges like this ... without
> using essentially the same sort of patriot act justification as in
> the case that got thrown out.
Yes, there does not seem to be any articulable (in the sense of readily expressable) difference in this charge under 2339A as to the question of how a lawyer would be able to tell the difference between defending a client and "material support" for that client - the grounds of the constitutional vagueness for which the charges under 2339B were dismissed.
The charges can be made because the Injustice Department can indict - in our shorthand - a ham sandwich. How they can persuade Judge Koettl that they are not engaged in spitting upon his prior opinion is less clear - perhaps they can make a convincing showing that they meant him no disrespect but merely had not understood a thing he had written.
The new charges are a conspiracy to conspire, piling inchoate offense on inchoate offense until reels the mind.
There was once a defense called "vindictive prosecution" - and with the Injustice department saying in open court that there is no new evidence to support the superceding, and charging Lynne on charges indistinguishable from those thrown out (as to the grounds on which they were thrown out), this would be a pretty clear case. But the defense, like the 4th Amendment, may no longer exist.
> [BTW, while we're on the subject: the rule that allowed the Feds to
> monitor her lawyer/client conversations in the first place -- is that
> technically part of the Patriot Act? Or is it just one of many
> terrible laws passed in the wake of 9/11 that many of us think of as
> part of the Patriot Act but which are actually separate from it --
> and not sunsetted?]
The claim to supercede the attorney-client privilege is based on the Foreign Surveillance Act ("FISA") of 1978, a police state piece of legislation of the Carter Administration. A good analysis of FISA (written shortly before it was yet further broadened) is available at <http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism/fisa_faq.html> The surveillance in violation of the attorney-clent privilege was initiated not only before the Patriot Act was passed, but by the prior administration. The police state is bipartisan.
The regs Justin referred to are the Special Administrative Measures ("SAMS") pursuant to which the US tortures some of its many many prisoners by denying them all contact with the outside world, and to which Lynne is accused of having falsely promised to conform her conduct as a prior condition to being permitted to provide counsel to her imprisoned client.
john mage